World's Workers Rise Up in Celebration and Protest on May Day

A protester (C) takes aim at riot police with a slingshot during a May Day demonstration in Istanbul May 1, 2014. (Photo: REUTERS/Murad Sezer)

In marches and street demonstrations, people across the world on Thursday were marking May Day, or International Labor Day, by demanding better treatment of working people and union members as they also called for respect of democratic freedoms and equal rights.

In Spain, unions members and other workers expressed opposition to the their government's severe austerity measures and misguided approach to the economy:In Bangladesh, garment factory workers and others staged protests in the city of Dhaka to once again demand reforms to labor practices in the country:In Cambodia, factory workers also demanded an end to inhumane labor laws and lax protections:

In Russia, large marches in Moscow celebrated the nation's socialist roots but also railed against the policies of Putin's autoacratic power-hold, assault on democracy, and terrible record on human rights and equality:In Thailand, laborers in Bangkok marched and called for the improvement of the nation's labor laws and an increase to the minimum wage:In Germany, anti-capitalist demonstrators marched through Berlin calling for an end to the destructive nature of the system:In Indonesia, tens of thousands marched in Jakarta:

In the Philippines, workers rallied outside the Presidential Palace and criticized the government's failed economic policies:

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Further

With the toxic Bibi circus in town - cue talk of "tentacles of terror" - find hope in the extraordinary Combatants For Peace, a joint effort by weary Israeli and Palestinian veterans of violence who've laid down their guns to fight for peace. Led by a former IDF soldier and Fatah militant who both lost daughters to the conflict's "unrightable wrongs," they insist on the need to "hear what is painful" and talk to your 'enemies': "Partners for peace always exist. You only have to look for them."